Here be Dragons

I’m in the process of moving homes for the first time in about 7 years.. As a result I am find all sorts of crap I completely forgot about.. including my notebook of old poems.. I’ve had this notebook since I was a teenager.. And the first few poems are ones I’d painstakingly copied from an older notebook.

There are some gems I wrote when I must have been around ten. My current favourite is one about the Loch Ness Monster (written circa 1989)

*Ahem*

The Loch Ness Monster

People scream when they see the Monster

Day and night people flee in fright

I don’t’ see why people are afraid

Of a Monster on parade.

**side note.. this is where I get whimsical**

I’d love to see him,

free him from his lonely home

Set him free on land

Where he could wander and roam.

Ok, so biology, palaeontology, and well basic physics eluded me.. but y’know poems are metaphorical.. or something

I moved the stone today.  It had been staring at me.

The way stones do.

Accusing me of abandonment.

It’s not my fault a stone is hard to love.

I tried to reason with it first. I pointed out that I’d kept it safe these last 15 years. That’s quite a lifetime for a pet rock. Most of my friends lost theirs within the first few months.

It didn’t seem to matter. My stone just kept on staring.

I shouted it at it then. What did it expect. It’s not like it ever showed me affection. It just sat there all the time, expecting care and comfort but offering nothing in return. It didn’t even have a usb cable (being a younger model of pet rock. One I’d picked up in a field).

Still the stone stared.

It wasn’t fair, I moaned, I had to move on. I had to make space. There wasn’t room, I said, In my new life. There was too much history to carry with me.

The Stone was implacable.

I pointed out that it wasn’t the only thing being left behind. Teddies carried from childhood were being abandoned too (these teddies having long since learned their future was inevitable).

The Stone said nothing and merely looked at me.

I couldn’t take it. Didn’t it understand. There was no place for a piece of Tipperary stone with two marker spots for eyes in a grown up life.

One did not walk up the aisle with limestone in one’s bra.

The stone did not care about my tears. The stone just sat there, waiting.

It knew, the way that stones know, that I wouldn’t last against it’s stoicism.

Eventually I sighed and said, oh rock, you have too many memories. 

The stone may have blinked.

Or there may have been tears.

So I moved the stone today.

But not into the goodbye box.